Photography looks very realistic, but is it real?
According to the Japanese word of photography, shashin--
shashin, it looks real
but it's not real.
Reflection of truth
Kamaitachi is the fictional animal
Kama means "Sickle Weasel"
It has some sort of a humorous touch,
humor--
but not the safety humor, but the dangerous humor
Something like that
The Kamaitach-- 'itachi has a sense of attacking you
Tatsumi Hijikata was one of my best friends
He created the word "Butoh"
The word, it is a general--
general word in Japanese
Butoh was dance, but it was like that
without control or anything, like that
Ta, ta, Ta
Step, step, step
Controlled movement
Not with the movement of ballet dance
or American modern dance,
but more Japanese.
I said to him that I wanted to photograph him
at his birthplace.
I have a feeling that he himself is a Kamaitachi.
He has such a mood, atmosphere
You see?
But he is a genius man
Genius dancer
But not like a ballet dancer
He doesn't have any elegance at all.
People were very much afraid,
but he did something erotic,
something humorous, you know.
The villagers, they all laughed
and they started to relax.
The village was a dramatic theater to me,
and those people who were the actors and the actresses,
and himself is a star among those ordinary actors
and actresses.
It was the age of realism
Realism was all over in Japan
Mine is the Eikoh Hosoe realism
I am on the other side
You can express your images through camera;
the appearance looks realistic
But through a camera,
you have to make your own work.
Photograph is not just the product of physical movement,
but the psychological work,
because the camera is treated and operated by a human
being.